Question:

I’m a new director at a medium-sized nonprofit that has gone through a hard year. There have been many staff changes in the past year, and I can tell that many within the organization are still struggling to negotiate these changes.

Two supervisors who report to me are very unfriendly to me. They give one-word responses most of the time. They don’t say "hi" or "bye" unless I really go out of my way. They never, ever ask how I’m doing or anything like that, even though I try to initiate pleasantries with them. I don’t think it’s personal — I think they just are not in the habit of cultivating a positive relationship with a superior.

Their lack of warmth rarely offends me, but I do think it sends a bad message to the other people in the department for whom they should be setting an example because they’re supervisors.

Can I ask them to be nicer and more mindful of the way they communicate? I will also continue to lead by example by being very friendly and communicating thoroughly. I have never encountered people at any stage of my career who behave with such a lack of awareness for how they interact with their superiors. I think niceness is really important, and it’s not feeling popular; it’s about laying the foundation for productive conversations and a free exchange of ideas.

I don’t mean to imply that I would threaten to give them a negative review, but they really need to be aware of the fact that how they communicate, whether they are open with me, and the example they set for their reports are all things that I could consider in a performance review. Would this come across as petty or needy?

Answer:

Well, the real issue isn’t about pleasantries; it’s that they’re operating in a way that isn’t consistent with the kind of culture you want, and I bet it goes well beyond basic pleasantries.

If they’re this chilly with you, I find it hard to imagine that they’re keeping you in the loop on work, using you as a resource, cultivating a sense of positive sense of energy and mission with their staffs, and I’d focus more on that stuff. (Because really, if they were doing that stuff well, the rest of this wouldn’t be an issue … if it were happening at all, which it probably wouldn’t be.)

One next step might be to take them out to lunch (individually) and try to get to know them better — but I’d also stay alert to the possibility that they’re not operating the way you want managers to operate on a whole RANGE of things, and that you might need people in those roles who are better equipped to work in a partnership with you.

Before you conclude that, I’d have a direct conversation with them about how you want the relationship to work — again, focusing on substance more than the hi/bye stuff — and give them a chance to meet those expectations. But it’s really possible that they’re just not ideal for their roles, or that they’ve been so damaged by the hard year you reference that they might not be able to move on from it in the way you need.

Alison Green writes about workplace and management issues for The Business Journals. She writes the "Ask a Manager" website, dispensing advice on career, job search, and management issues. Previously she was the chief of staff for a national nonprofit lobbying organization, where she was responsible for day-to-day management. She lives in Washington, D.C.